Formappi: Odd, Tender Logic Won By Highest Price Bidding Company Hard To Understand

Lucius Karus/Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - The person in charge of the Legislation of the Indonesian Parliamentary Concerned Community Forum (Formappi), Lucius Karus, assessed that there were a number of irregularities in the curtain bidding process for the official residence of members of the House of Representatives (DPR). In particular, the winner of the tender with the highest price.

"It is difficult to understand the logic of the tender for the procurement of curtains for the official residence of members of the DPR which ended in victory for the company with the highest bid," said Lucius in his statement, Monday, May 9.

Lucius admitted that he was surprised that the company that proposed the most expensive contract was the winner of the tender. In fact, according to him, there are still other companies that bid at lower prices.

"How can the winning bidder be the company that will suck up the budget, not the company that can provide a price difference that benefits the state. It's as if you want to say that the budget that has been allocated must be spent without having to think about budget efficiency that can benefit the state," said Lucius.

Lucius said that the discrepancy in determining the price seemed to imply that the goods being held were not important. What is important, the budget must be used all. According to him, in terms of budget efficiency, the tender for the procurement of the DPR's curtains is clearly problematic.

"Because there are problems, I think we have to find out exactly what happened in the process of determining the winner of the tender," he said.

Lucius also warned not to choose the winner of the tender for the company that gave the highest bid because there was collusion with the procurement project organizer. So that the tender is just a kind of formality procedure.

"It is possible that the decision on who won the tender has already been determined before the tender is carried out," he said.

"The determination of the winner of the tender which precedes the tender itself is of course done because it wants to ensure profits not only for the project implementing company but also the project organizer," added Lucius.

Because, continued Lucius, with the certainty of the winner from the start, the conspiracy to reap profits must have been clear as well. This allegation, he said, makes sense considering how insistent the Secretary-General of the DPR is in executing the project, even though many people have criticized and even rejected it.

Moreover, he added, the profile of the company implementing the curtain project was initially a contractor and IT company. Recently, there has been an expansion of the scope of projects undertaken by the company that won the tender by including interior supply as one of the areas of work for PT Bertiga Mitra Solusi.

"If an IT company suddenly works on a curtain procurement project, maybe it's necessary to question it," concluded Lucius.